This invention relates to protectors and more particularly to improved apparatus providing high voltage protection for telephone repeaters that are connected across telephone line cable pairs at connectors in a repeater housing.
Repeaters are inserted at intermediate points in telephone cables, for example, to amplify signals in order to compensate for losses incurred in transmission over cable. It is desirable to protect electrical components in the repeater unit from surge voltages which may be induced on pairs of wires in the cable by lightning or power lines. This is accomplished by connecting gas tube type surge arrestors across the repeater unit and associated cable pairs where they are connected together. When a surge voltage is induced on a cable pair, a gas tube breaks down and conducts to short circuit the input or output of the repeater and the cable pair. In the prior-art, a multipin connector is mounted in a repeater housing and sockets of an associated repeater unit are plugged onto pins of the former. A plurality of other connectors, each having a plurality of sockets for associated pins on an associated protector module which includes gas tubes, are also mounted on the repeater housing. Hand wiring and hand soldering of interconnecting wires is required between cable pairs and the other connectors, as well as between the multipin connector and the other connectors. Additional hand wiring and hand soldering of interconnecting wires is required on individual protector modules between pins thereof and associated snap fasteners making electrical connection to band electrodes of the gas tubes. In an alternate prior art approach employing gas tubes having three pin-type electrodes, a protector holder having sockets for each gas tube and associated connector pins is secured to the repeater housing by screws. The holder comprises a dielectric body having a plurality of slotted sleeve sockets therein which are arranged in groups of three with their axes in a first plane, and a plurality of pins which are parallel to each other in a second plane that is parallel to the first plane. The intermediate socket of each group is connected to a ground plate on the back of the body. One ends of the pins are bent over and connected to associated ones of the other sockets inside the body. After this dielectric body is attached to a panel in the repeater housing, it is necessary to connect wires between the pins thereon and pins of the multipin connector which connects to the repeater unit itself. It is desirable to reduce the amount of manual labor required, which is expensive, as well as the possibility of wiring errors and broken wires, and the amount of space required to provide such protection for repeater units.
An object of this invention is the provision of an improved protector module holder for receiving plug-in type gas tube surge arrestors and which is pluggable directly onto pins of a multipin connector in a repeater housing.